The Cave Art Paintings of the Chauvet Cave

THE WORLD'S OLDEST CAVE ART PAINTINGS?

CHAUVET CAVE PAINTINGS GALLERY

The Chauvet Cave is one of the most famous prehistoric rock art sites in the world. Located in the Ardeche region of southern France, along the bank of the river Ardeche near the Pont-d'Arc, this cave was only discovered as recently as 1994, happened upon by a small team of cavers led by Jean-Marie Chauvet. Chauvet Cave's importance is based on two factors: firstly, the aesthetic quality of these Palaeolithic cave paintings, and secondly, their great age. With one exception, all of the cave art paintings have been dated between 30,000 & 33,000 years ago. In 1998, the eminent French prehistorian Dr. Jean Clottes headed the first research team in Chauvet Cave, under great security.

Dr Jean Clottes headed the
first Chauvet Cave research team

For the former director of prehistoric antiquities for the Midi-Pyrènèes region of France and scientific advisor on prehistoric art to the French Ministry of Culture, this security proved to be of vital importance - as the results of the Carbon 14 dating of the cave paintings started to emerge from the laboratories (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et delíEnvironnement, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, Ceentre de Datation par le radiocarbon de Lyon, France, and the Research Laboratory for Archaeology, Oxford, UK), controvversy and heated debates flared up as many entrenched and pre-existing conceptions were turned upside down.

The fact that these cave paintings were executed so skilfully yet so deep within prehistory has forced us to abandon the prevailing view that 'early art was naive art'. Not only is the Ice Age art of the Chauvet Cave extremely old, it is also very extensive and highly varied. And one other factor intrigued prehistorians around the world eagerly awaiting news from the research team; the Chauvet Cave and its Paleolithic paintings were more or less perfectly preserved.

Horses facing one another

Horse in the Central recess

The
Megaloceros

Fighting Rhino & Four Horses

As part of the France Rock Art Archive the Bradshaw Foundation present a gallery of photographs from the Chauvet Cave. Click photographs for enlargements. Cave painting descriptions open in the panel to the right.


Red Bears	Panel of Red Dots	Large Horse Panel


The Owl	Panel of the Lions	The Sorcerer


Bear Skull Altar	Two Black Lions	The Panther Panel

Bison from the
End Chamber of
Chauvet Cave

Hundreds of cave paintings of animals have been recorded, depicting at least 13 different species, including those which have rarely or never been found in other Ice age paintings. Rather than the more usual animals of the hunt that predominate in Palaeolithic cave art, such as horses, cattle and reindeer, the walls of the Chauvet Cave are covered with predatory animals - lions, panthers, bears, owls, rhinos and hyenas. As one would expect, there are no human figures, except at the very end of the lowest and farthest gallery in the Chauvet cave system, where there appears to be a female figurine - the legs and genitals of a woman - attracting the attention of the one other human figure - the lower body of a man with the upper body of a bison, now referred to as 'The Sorcerer'.